Latest Contact Center Best Practices

Praised for its superior scalability, reliability, and cost savings, cloud is quickly taking shape in the contact center industry, with more than 50% of businesses actively investing in cloud contact center solutions, and 76% planning to do so within the next eighteen months (Call Center IQ survey, “Cloud Contact Center Technology: Not ‘If’ But ‘How’”). And as businesses continue utilizing cloud contact center solutions, more data highlighting its merits has unfolded, further supporting the ongoing migration.

Cloud-only contact center services will have a tough time meeting the needs of today’s Enterprise businesses.

Why?

Because a cloud-only service cannot meet the security and compliance requirements of enterprise customers.

While the cloud is real, the role of on-premise is not disappearing. Sensitive customer data, call recordings, and financial material must remain behind a company's firewall. A cloud-only call center play can only go so far.

The rise of the Internet and expansion of communication channels have given today’s consumers far greater power to explore alternative product/service options, putting customer experience at the forefront of purchasing decisions. In fact by 2020, customer experience is expected to overtake price and product as a brand’s competitive differentiator. And according to Dimension Data’s 2015 Global Contact Centre Benchmarking report, which surveyed 901 contact centers across 72 countries, 75% of contact centers recognize service as a competitive differentiator (up 18% over the past two years), and 57% say they can relate improving customer experience levels to revenue and profit growth. But despite the growing effort towards improving customer service to better meet rising consumer expectations, customer satisfaction levels have decreased for the fourth year in a row—which begs the question, where are businesses missing the mark when it comes to their service delivery?

Continued Implementation of Self-Service: Recent studies have shown 67% ofcustomers prefer self-service over speaking to a live representative, which has its benefits when considering self-service interactions are 200-300% less expensive than those handled by a live agent. While the use of live agents is not expected to decrease, the importance and extended use of self-service is likely to be a continued theme next yar.

Growing Deployment of Cloud Infrastructures: By 2015, cloud computing spending is projected to reach 155 billion, compared to 46.4 billion in 2008. And according to DMG Consulting, cloud-based infrastructure is the fastest growing area for the call center industry, predicted to almost double between 2013 and 2015. When compared to premise-based solutions, contact centers based in the cloud have experienced 27% reduction in annual contact center costs and a 35% improvement in uptime. Offering superior reliability, scalability, and cost-savings, cloud adoption shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon and likely to continue its successes in 2014 well into 2015 and beyond.

Where does the Internet of Things, fog computing, and contact centers come together? Read the latest interview with 3CLogic's CEO, Raj Sharma, as he explains how the evolution in IoT is changing the contact center space, as printed in Fog Computing World by Carl Ford (Making Contact with the Internet of Things Community - 10/8/2014)

When it comes to the IoT Evolution, we are facing major changes in what we share and in what is known about us. The result is that the contact center can have access to resources and information that helps expand quality of service. I had the opportunity to interview Raj Sharma the CEO of 3CLogic who explained to me what we should see as the impact of IoT in terms of service. What I find the most fascinating in the discussion is the focus on Fog Computing and the impact of cloud service models within the Enterprise.